JKK has posted a couple of new items today, both focusing on size. The first shows the Fujitsu U1010 UMPC next to the Fujitsu P1610 and the second shows the sizing details of the HTC Shift which where picked up via Expansys today [Who look like they really might have solid info on pricing and availability.]

JKK dropped me an email and highlighted the fact that the HTC Shift is only 19mm wider than the U1010. Checking it out on Sizeeasy really shows how close they are.

Click through for an interactive page.

On his blog he says “If Shift will sell near €1000 with HSDPA, it will eat others alive.” I agree completely. The HTC shift, when closed into tablet mode is a similar overall dimension to the Samsung Q1. Its going to raise the bar for UMPC designers.

Source: jkkmobile.

The new VodafoneLive! Internet Flat service in Germany is 10 Euro per month (24 month contract) for flat-rate mobile Internet. At last we have a decent flat rate tariff. Wooot! Wooot!…….What? Port 80 only? Opera Mini only? Holy crap! Here we go again. People are calling HTTP ‘The Internet’ and flogging it like its the answer to your mobile Internet prayers. It’s certainly not the FIE, that’s for sure but I have to say, after giving it a thorough work through it’s actually worth it and the Opera Mini requirement appears to be just a promotional effort just because most feature phone browsers aren’t up to the job of displaying even basic Internet content. 

Luckily, the need for FTP, SSH, SMTP and other Internet ports is reducing and on a mobile phone, most services are designed so that data is transported over port 80. In general, new users to the mobile Internet won’t notice the restrictions and even in my own online world, I generally use web-based applications and there is always a way to get round problems like this. Running this contract on an E90 is going to give you serious value for money too. A decent browser experience and fast 1.5mpbs (in my test on 3.7mbps HSDPA) download speeds is going to squeeze much more out of this contract than most standard feature or smartphones. Lovely! The only wall I came up against was the email client which I left on after testing but in general I don’t use offline email tools so even this isn’t a problem. I believe I can even add a 200MB true Internet contract on top for 20 Euros and switch APNs if I need to access anything other than port 80 or 443.

One restriction in the terms and conditions is that you can not use the connection from a PC. Its the first time I’ve seen this clause in a Vodafone contract and its a bit strange because the E90 can hit the net pretty hard if it needs too. Its almost a PC! I’m pretty sure they can’t track the end device though. Unless they’re monitoring browser types embedded in the HTTP data, there’s no way to tell. And besides, I’m a two-SIM man now. My 200MB SIM with the ‘real’ Internet contract sits in my Q1b UMPC and this combo voice and data card is sitting quite nicely in the E90. The only issue is that if I want to take a small phone out I have to pop the SIM out and drop it into my 6280. There must be a way around that with a dual-SIM option or some form of forwarding on a second SIM card. I just need to set it up.

So if you’ve just picked up a 3G phone with a QVGA screen or bigger and you’re thinking of taking the first steps into the mobile Internet world, go ahead and sign up with Vodafone! 10 Euros per month isn’t much and the advantages are fun and fruitful. If I find any strange features over the next few weeks (I’m on a month trial) I’ll certainly update this post.

VodafoneLive! Internet Flat 24 months contract. 10 Euros. (Germany)

• High speed (1.5mbps in my tests)
• HTTPS working ok
• No email client (you will need to use Google Mail or another web-based service.)
• IM problems likely (although it may be possible through some specialised client configurations and proxys)
• Shazu working OK
• No streaming audio (unless its working over port 80)

Steve Litchfield, the guy I was referring to in my E90 video introduction yesterday, has a great segment in his latest Smartphones Show videocast. Steve has been blogging about smartphones for a long time, really knows his stuff and I regard his opinion highly so when I saw him talking about his ideal 2007 smartphone spec it was time to pay attention and very interesting to see him list some UMPC-like features on his requirements list.

Take a look at the video on YouTube and FFWD to 2:10 where Steve starts talking about his requirements. The list includes features like ‘modern browser engine’ and third party applications. If I was to list requirement the ultimate low-end UMPC or “Communiputer” (for want of a better expression!) , the list would look very similar too, so in the table you’ll see below I’ve taken Steve’s list and added a few extra points that come from my UMPC world. I have marked each sector with points based on best-of-breed device features and finalised it with some notes. It turned out quite nicely (even if I do say so myself!) and shows where the two categories have already met and where the two categories could meet in the future. It also highlights where each device could easily (without technical/physical limitations) get better. Of course, this is only my own opinion and I’m sure the weightings would vary for others but in general, the trends look about right.

The intersection point between these two markets is extremely close now and its quite amazing that the phone and desktop PC have evolved so far and wide that they are meeting each other head-on on the Uber-smartphone and UMPC territory. The market potential in this space must be HUGE and the fight is going to be a hard one. Not only for OEMs to find their target customers but for customers that to find their target device amongst the huge range of devices that will appear in the next few years. For me, the E90 and Everun represent the point at where the two markets are starting to merge and in the next few days I’ll be looking at these two devices side by side with this list in mind. It should make a nice video presentation and discussion point.

(click on ‘read more’ below if you’re not already viewing the full article)

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Edit: Thanks to Rodfather. I had no idea that flicker supported blogs in the way it does. Very slick. So now I can use Shozu I guess.

Steve.

Before I give up on my search for some nice blogging software for the E90 I thought I’d put the call out to readers.

Here I am sitting with a pocketable communications device that has WiFi, BT, GSM and UMTS communication radios in it, a nice 800 pixel wide screen, a flexible multitasking operating system and a full QWERTY keyboard and yet there doesn’t seem to be a single applications available that lets me use this as a mobile blogging tool. Shozu is an image-focused app. Picoblogger seems to be a dead application and all the others are either photo-only tools (understandable as not many S60 devices have full keyboards!) or app’s for Windows Mobile. I bet there’s a nice choice of mobile blogging software for the HTC Advantage. Matt, James?

I don’t want to blog via an online application because the browser on the E90 isn’t rich or fast enough and I like to have the freedom, efficiency and safety of offline blogging so if anyone knows of an S60 app that will post html and images through either the blogger or metaweblog API’s, please let me know.

The HTC Shift comes up in pretty much every conversation I have about UMPCs these days. No-one dares make a purchase decision until they’ve seen the HTC Shift. Its good looking, feature-packed, has the keyboard, is backed by a strong mobility company and has the potential to become the de-facto productivity UMPC. It also has the potential to be pushed right into the high capacity marketing and sales channels that HTC have for their existing products. All we need to know is availability, size, price and screen resolution.

After a few telephone calls and emails the other day I managed to get a response from a PR firm dealing with the HTC Shift. I won’t name then as 1) I’m not sure they should have given the info out to me and 2) I’m not sure if I believe them. I will pass on the info though. Here’s what I got in a return email:

Price: “around 1000 Euro.”

Availability: “end of third quarter of 2007.”

Before you get too excited though, lets put that into perspective with another snippet of info I had. My contact (a reseller) told me that they will have them at the end of the year but the final specifications and prices where unknown. My interpretation here is that the price could be 1200 Euros in real terms (add taxes and a bit of marketing licence) and availability could slip into 4th quarter (Christmas period == end of year) Translated in the usual 1:1 Euro:Dollar tech price conversion rate you end up with a $1200 HTC Shift. But will this only be an entry level device or will it be the full monty? Are we talking Ultra Mobile productivity device with HSDPA and 1024×600 screen for $1200?

Update: I’m not sure how long this has been up but Expansys are offering the HTC with HSDPA for around 1300 Euro and saying it will be available in October. There’s no screen resolution details. Expansys are usually expensive and it looks like 1200 Euro could be spot on.

The Intel Developers Forum is coming up in 6 weeks with the Mobility keynote planned for the 19th. David Perlmutter and Anand Chandrasekher will be speaking at 8am local time on Wednesday 19th so put it in your diary and hope for an HTC launch!

That’s the main reason for buying the E90. Its not for me, its for UMPCPortal (and possibly my wife when I’ve finished testing it!) UMPCPortal needs to find out just how close it comes to a UMPC experience. How will it affect MID’s? What set of UMPC-based tasks can it perform? What type of customer would be better off buying an E90 than a UMPC?

As the owner of UMPCPortal I have to admit  that  I have a slight bias towards UMPCs but I’m going to try and be honest with myself when testing and I’m going to try to garner and assess opinions from others in an unbiased way. Here’s one first hands-on opinion before the video though. The time between opening the box to browsing the first web page was the shortest amount of time I’ve ever experienced. Under 5 minutes. Possibly 60 seconds after installing the battery and SIM card and turning on the device for the first time. Not bad Nokia!

Higher quality WMV version available at Blip.tv or watch the YouTube version below.

Richard Brown has posted his second video about using UMPC’s as creative tools. He’s using the VIA Nanobook (naturally, its his companies product!) and he’s taking a look at how UMPCs enable in-situation composition. That is, being there, living it, capturing it and, importantly, publishing it. I’d actually call it a form of moblogging and its something I enjoy a lot. At -6 degrees or 20 degrees.

I really like the video. It’s one of the best I’ve seen that promotes the use of Ultra Mobile PC’s and it’s far more realistic than the Intel promo videos. It makes me want to get out on my Solar UMPC bike right now! If I was to do a promo video myself though, I’m not sure I would focus on promoting the creative aspects of UMPCs. Yes, the Nanobook and other laptop-like UMPCs enable this sort of on-the-spot creativity and of-course it makes sense for VIA to be doing this in the lead-up to the Nanobook launches through Packard Bell and Everex but its just a small section of the range of possible UMPC devices. Receiving content is going to be the main feature of a large number of UMPC devices, especially those with smaller form factors like the ones we’re going to see with VIA’s mobile-ITX platform. 85% of Americans use the Internet but only 8% of Americans contribute to the Internet. (Source. Via) so that gives UMPC marketing teams a big hint about where to put their money!

Stir your creative side with the Nanobeat II Video.